


The Moon Minds The Man Who Minds The Wolf

by Patchouli (lifelesslyndsey)



Series: Predilections [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adrian is Stiles Dad, Adrians POV, BAMF Stiles, Dannys pov, Demon Stiles Stilinski, Dereks POV, M/M, Magic Stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 05:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12101610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifelesslyndsey/pseuds/Patchouli
Summary: Siles scratched at his chin, the pathetic stubble sprouting there in a sad, patchy attempt of a beard.This child could destroy the world but could not yet grow facial hair. Adrian refused to sigh, dammit.





	1. Stiles Stilinski and the Men Who Love Him

**Author's Note:**

> This part of the series will be told in a few different point of views, Adrian and Danny mostly. I wanted to kind of grow those relationships. 
> 
> There may be some Derek Hale in this. 
> 
> Because I love him.
> 
> ALSO
> 
> Please be patient, updates will be kind of slow. I am going to try to avoid any HUGE cliff hangers, these are more slice-of-life. Probably. 
> 
> And maybe fucking, I'm thinking there should be some fucking.

“Salem Society,” Stiles echoed, holding the bright, glossy pamphlet. He looked shrewd, like he was judging Adrian for the Papyrus font, like Adrian issued the stupid thing himself. “You mean like...the Salem Witch Burnings, Salem? That Salem?” 

“No. Salem, Ohio obviously.” He paused, shrugging. “There is power in death.” Stiles already knew this, personally and in great length. “The site is steeped in blood magic. It’s a great place to meet.” 

“Salem.” Stiles said again ,this time softer. There was something calculating in his voice, but then, there always was. “Salem, Massachusetts.” 

“Yes.” Adrian refused to sigh. “Salem, Massachusetts. I speculated you might harbor some inclination to join me given that the Society holds their convention thirty minutes from MIT.” Not, Adrian would like to emphasise, that was the reason he was interested in bringing the boy. He just knew it was suitable bait. 

“You like me. You wanna take me to see my boyfriend who lives six billion miles away. I knew it.” He looked very pleased with himself. Adrian couldn’t stand it. 

“Hardly. I want to show off my progeny at the Salem Society. I want to see their sad faces fall when you open a portal in the space time continuum or reanimate some kids pet gerbil.” 

“I can’t do the time thing,” Stiles argued, because Stiles was Stiles and that was the soul of him, arguing. “I keep trying. I don’t know. I feel like it’s right at my fingertips, but I can’t reach it.” He scratched at his chin, the pathetic stubble sprouting there in a sad, patchy attempt of a beard. This child could destroy the world but could not yet grow facial hair. Adrian refused to sigh, dammit. Of course, Stiles could will a beard to grow, should the fancy strike. He chooses not too. He likes to do things organically. Adrian gives into temptation and sighs deeply, maddenly, endlessly into the abyss that is his life now . “Anyway, you know only about twenty percent of my magic comes from you.” 

“Yes,” Adrian grins at that, unrepentant. “I know that. You know that. They do not know that. And besides it’s twenty percent of infinity, which is infinite in itself. I’m allowed to be smug.” He clapped his hands once, and collected the pamphlet back. “We leave in three weeks time. Please discuss all necessary details with your father.” Other father, his mind betrays him. Adrian has not yet accepted the realities that come with Stiles being his biological extension. There is a three letter word for it that he has not yet come to terms with. 

“You’re buying my ticket,” Stiles told him firmly, but he looked pleased. Adrian knew he’d only get one solid day of the kid at the Convention before he hoofed it to see Danny ,but a  
day was all Adrian needed to show those blow-hard hippies what the Harris name produced. 

“I wouldn’t need to buy tickets if you’d figure out how to open up a portal through the space time continuum.” He’d already purchased two tickets, though he’d never tell the boy. “Our emphasis at the convention is in plants, obviously. Unfortunately it’s a segment over populated with hedge witches and herb flingers.”

“What’s your shtick, then?” 

Adrian watched as Stiles rummaged through his cupboards, stealing a glass from above the sink. He sniffed the slightly turned orange juice in the carton, and Adrian could taste the magic in the air as he shook away the time it took to turn sour. That. There. Stiles was sure he couldn’t alter time, and here he stood, jiggling the orange juice fresh again, three or four days younger. The house liked him, warming in a way that told Adrian it missed him when he was gone. How embarrassing. “Over the years I’ve been working to perfect hybriding into one or two plants. Hyacinth, rosethorn, and ivy for example.” 

“That’s half of like three potions. Compounds. Whatever.” He blinked. “I have that in three different hex bags. Are you simplifying compounds?” 

“Into one plant, yes. That is the idea. So far I’ve only ever succeeded once, and the subsequent failure has irked me since. I combined hollyhock, larkspur and babies breath.” The resulting flower was pale purple, with small open petals and branching stalks that could, combined with other elements, drop a three hundred pound man in thirty-seven seconds for eight solid hours. Prepared differently, it was also great for fertility. It had taken him years to perfect, and he had yet to reproduce the effect with any other combination. 

“You want me to look at it?” He hesitated, like he knew Adrian well enough to find that idea repulsive. 

“I would rather succeed on my own at something impossible than have you defy the laws of life, magic and the great beyond to make it so.” Organically, a voice within his head that sounds terribly like Stiles says. “However, if you have any suggestions as to how I might go about it...I’m amenable.” 

“I can take a look, yeah. Can I see the hollyhock hybrid? Do you want me to start some seedlings for the convention? I could hold them in stasis at different stages of growth and show where you start the hydriding process.” 

“That would be helpful, actually.” It would also serve to make for a better presentation, something Adrian had no flair for. Holding multiple seedlings at varying stages of growth was also a delightful power display he was not in the least opposed of. Let them see how true the Harris line threw. 

 

*

They did hyacinth, rosethorn and ivy. Adrian knew without a doubt that Stiles could simply will the plants to marry, but he seemed absolutely excited by the idea of fostering the bond naturally. That was his way through, Adrian would admit. Stiles was capable of anything. The world was his possibility, and beyond. But he was not a megalomaniac. He was not ripe and rampant with power. The boy didn’t even need to tie his own shoes, could do them with a thought, and still he tripped on his laces. 

“Okay so.” He laid out his plant samples on Adrian's kitchen table. “Instead of slowly growing them in stages, I forced all three of these to grow to maturity, and then scaled them back.” He waved his hands over the little mountains of dirt like it was nothing to reverse time and creation. “So I could watch for parallels. At first I was just looking for structural parallels, like when they split, or leaf, or bud. Those would be your hybrid entry points,right?” 

“Yes. It’s very specific, they need to parallel down to the most minute chlorophyll.” It had taken ages to foster the first success, and hundreds of cuttings. Adrian could speed growth, but only so much, and he couldn’t ungrow a plant like his heathen offspring. 

“Exactly,” Stiles grinned. “So I had an idea. What if instead of finding structural parallels, you found magical parallels?” 

“These are benign plants.” There were magical plants of course, but they were finicky and easily offended. And awful to use in magical compounds because they could change their structure at will. You think you’re mixing something for hair growth and it suddenly you have live, prehensile tentacles growing out of your face. 

“Well yes. But, they have elements of energy right? All living things do. And what is magic but energy? Hear me out; find the parallel in the energy fluctuations during growth and merge them at those stasis. There’s more wiggle room.” 

More margin for error, Adrian wanted to say but he was struck by the idea. It was clever, to focus on the benign energy rather than the mundane stages of growth. It was a surprisingly magical theory from a boy who regularly forgot he could destroy the world. “Have you tried it?” 

Stiles hesitated. “Ah. No. You know I can’t...I’m not really good at seeing magical signatures.” 

Because everything looked magical to him, Adrian recalled. Stiles could see the most benign levels ofs magic and energy in everything. And it left him blind to threats, but at the same time....nothing was a real threat to him. 

“I...suppose you could control the growth while I gauge the parrales.” 

“...I mean, I understand if you don’t want my help. You said you wanted to do it naturally---” 

“Stiles.” Adrian fixed him with a stare reminiscent of chem class. “I asked for your assistance, I’d be remiss to turn it away when you offer. When I said I wanted to do it naturally, I only meant....I want to know why it’s happening.” 

“Fair.” Stiles nodded. “So....scale back or fast forward.” 

“Scale back.” There wasn’t any reason to it really, except that it filled him with a strange sense of something to watch Stiles bend time.

“Or what if....” Stiles bit his lip. “What if I let you control when we stop growth?” 

“We’ll have to go forward and I’m much slower.” They could, Adrian reasoned. There wasn’t any reason not too. 

“No I mean, what if I controlled the growth, but you controlled where we stop.” He reached out and grabbed Adrian by the elbow - and...and there it was. A tugging sensation as Stiles latched onto his magic. It was terrifying, to feel someone else touch it and he knew that Stiles wouldn’t hurt him but the fact that...that....

It really felt like Stiles could. 

But then.... Adrian felt something else. Something old and vast and wild and he knew in his heart that this was Stiles. This was the Nexus and Nemeton and Old Harris Blood and it crashed between them like lapping waves, gentle and constant and firm. 

Adrian could feel it in his bones. 

“That could work,” he said faintly, feeling it twine with his own, braiding seamlessly at the edges where they shared blood and magic. Hybriding itself. 

****

 

“It worked.” Adrian stared at the plants. “It fucking worked.” 

Stiles twitched beside him, shifting from foot to foot. Adrian caught him just as he tripped on his own shoelace and nearly face planted into the greenhouse door frame “...did....did you not think it would? Or?” 

“I’ve been working on this for fifteen years,” Adrian confessed, staring at the buds. “I’ve been a laughing stock in the garden community for about twelve. I...And. You.” 

“But! But it was your theory! And you...I mean. You found the parallels. I would have never found them. I couldn’t see them, for one.” 

“Even if I had thought to examine benign magical energy, I don’t have the power to grow and merge. I couldn’t have forced them to grow all at the same pace while searching out parallels in energy fluctuations.” 

To his confusion, Stiles seemed to sink in on himself. “Okay, but are you like? Mad? That I kind of railroaded your project? Because you did the work. I provided the battery if nothing else.” 

“Mad? No! No, do you know what this means for potions creations? Compounds could be simplified into one or two mixtures. The time required to make them reduced. Efficiency increased. Not to mention the space it’ll save. Complete bases could be grown in a single plot and... the shelf life alone is worth it. They’re good as long as they’re alive. No more back stock and--- Am I mad? No. Stiles, I don’t think you’ve realized what we’ve just accomplished here.” A frisson of smug satisfaction encased him. “And we’re going to tell the world exactly how we did it.” 

“We are?”

“Yes. Reverse growth, combined with benign magical parallelling. No one else besides you could ever dream of accomplishing it. I’ll enjoy watching them fail.” 

“You and I,” Stiles corrected. “I couldn’t have done this myself. They all just look like magical plants to me.” 

“You and I,” Adrian conceded and felt no anger at sharing the glory. None at all. In fact.... He felt proud. 

 

With Stiles, Adrian didn’t even need to ship seedlings ahead of time. He pocketed the appropriate seeds, camouflaging them behind a veil of spells to prevent TSA of accusing him of drug transport, and contained his glee beneath a veil of contempt. 

The renown alone was enough to have his spirits sailing. This would put the Harris name on the map, wipe away all the smudges of his reputation and restore him in the magical botanical community.


	2. Do it for the Pixels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is nothing so heady as watching hands that could destroy the world tremble against your skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> none of this is beta'd because I'm a mess.

The pixilated smudge of dirt dashed across Stiles noes through the screen made Danny smile. “What does Mr.Harris even have you doing?” 

“Growing weed in his basement.” Stiles grinned and Danny missed him viscerally. “No but for seriousness, we’ve been messing around in the greenhouse. Hybriding junk. It’s pretty cool. One of his plants bit me.” He raised his arm and showed a three inch spiky circle above his elbow, crusted with dried bits of blood. 

“Like a Venus Fly Trap?” 

“No,” Stiles grinned wider. “No, not at all. It had like....a sucker thing for a mouth. Latched on like a leech. Adrian found me passed out like an hour later and I couldn’t see any colors for a solid ten minutes. Then I threw up. It was wild.” 

Danny spared a moment to be grateful that Stiles is nigh invincible and a strange, sucker-mouthed color-leaching plant could not do him any real harm. He should make a jest about Stiles being able to summon actual fire out of thin air but can’t stop himself from face planting into bitey greenery. Instead his mouth said, “I miss you.” 

Stiles sighed, a soft kind of happy-sad noise that made Danny’s toes curl in his socks. “I miss you too. My dad said I’m not allowed to mess with the time vortex in the house any more because last time all the clocks started going backwards and he had to wait for his avocado to re-ripen.” He huffed. “Adrian said the shed behind his house is probably far enough to make a very small worm hole without screwing up the foundation.” He sighed, mouth still curled into a little smile. “I’m trying.” 

The idea that Stiles might actually create a portal from MIT to Beacon Hills is so beyond comprehension, Danny refused to actually think on it. “Couple more months and I’ll be able to come home for the summer.” He’d made a visit for Christmas and Danny had all but wore Stiles like a backpack, for all that Stiles refused to let him out of his sight. And that was fine: Danny’s family was happy to have him around. Constantly. They loved him. (Danny loved him more.)

“I was thinking maybe we could take a trip somewhere, just you and me.” Stiles wiped at the smudge of dirt on his nose, smearing it across his cheek too and Danny refused to tell him. “I mean I know I’m going to have to share you eventually, but I kind of want to kidnap you for a week or forever. You know, whichever.” 

Danny liked the sound of that. His parents wouldn’t love him disappearing to Who Knows Where, but he was an adult dammit and he just...really missed Stiles. “What did you have in mind?” 

“I mean. Maybe Nona was telling me about a certain beach house in Hawaii we might be able to occupy for a little bit. You know. If you’re into that sort of thing. I know you’ve been to Hawaii. Um. Or like. Lived there. So maybe it’s not that exciting for you----” 

“Stiles I would love to go to Hawaii with you.” Sun, sand, and Stiles Stilinski? Danny could go down on that. Get down with that. What?

Looking stupidly relieved - like Danny might actually say no- Stiles shoulders dropped their tense frame. “Sweet, because like I already bought tickets.” He squinted, looking thoughtful. “Deaton took me up to Portland. They’ll pay a man a lot of money to remove a Yeti from a garden shed. And all I had to do was ask. He’s a cool dude, I named him Pete and showed him the internet. He’s gonna come down next Christmas and stay in the garage for a little bit.” 

What could Danny do but laugh at that. “I miss you,” he said again, resisting the urge to reach out and touch the screen like he might be able to feel the warmth of Stiles skin. “None of my friends here think you’re real. Apparently you’re too hot for me.” 

“Excuse me but what, luna ulana lole.” Danny can hear the grin in Stiles voice, delighted. “How do they even know what I look like? Aww am I your wallpaper picture?” 

“Obviously.” Danny doesn’t want to tell him. Stiles will gloat. But he also knows it’ll make Stiles smile for days and that....that makes it worth it. “But uh...Jake conned a kid in the art department to print a poster of you. Like. A big one. The kind they use for advertisements in subways.” Danny can’t help but look at it, in all it’s slightly-too-short glory. “He likes to point at it when he has girls over and they pay too much attention to me. I think he has it saved on his phone too.” 

“That is...fucking adorable. I like him. He’s great. When’s his birthday, I’m gonna buy him a cake.” Stiles cackles, bright and sharp and perfect. “What picture?” 

Danny flushes. “That’s not important.” 

“Are you blushing? You’re blushing, I can hear it.” Before Danny can argue how that’s not even a thing, Stiles voice changes. “Daniel,” he croons and okay. Danny is a sucker for how Stiles’ says his name. “What picture?” 

There is no way that Jake should have ever seen this picture of Stiles, is the thing. Danny had it hidden in his computer, encrypted. But then, he’s also rooming with a computer science major and Jake is....Good. Danny hadn’t taken that into consideration, and maybe hadn’t been trying to hard when he’d encrypted the photo. He tries to ignore what other photos were in that folder, and the fact that Jake has absolutely seen Danny’s asshole at least once. If Jake isn’t going to bring it up, neither is Danny. 

“It’s um.” Danny swivels his chair to look at it better. “It’s from when we went to the springs? And you wanted to skinny dip by that little cliff---” 

“Danny I’m not wearing pants in that picture.” 

That is a very true statement. Stiles had stripped off without so much as an ounce of shame, his hair slicked back, water droplets on his skin catching the last fragments of the sun. He’s turned, just a little at the hips, hand cupped over his junk as he catches sight of Danny snapping pictures. He’s laughing, bright and happy, head tipped back, eyes nearly closed with how wide he’s smiling. There isn’t a single thing Danny doesn’t fucking love about this picture. The rainbow of ink stands out stark against his pale skin. The thick muscles of his thighs. The dark path of hair beneath his navel, decorating his forearms and calves. His ass ain’t terrible either. He looks like a model. Jake and zoomed and cropped so Stiles fills the picture, and the picture fills the wall and the wall fills the room and Danny should probably take it down, but he can’t because he just. Really loves that picture. He’ll admit it would probably be better to hang it in his room and not the living area but maybe it makes him a little smug too. Stiles is hot. 

“No cake for Jake,” Stiles says, pouting. “I look stupid in that picture. I’m cupping my junk.” 

“I love that picture.” He means it to come out teasing, and light but it doesn’t. It’s soft and reverent and longing. 

“I’m printing the one of you,” Stiles says. “You know the one. The one from that weekend we went camping. And I’m gonna hang it on my refrigerator.” 

“You wouldn't’!” Danny knows what one he’s talking about and it involves Stiles dick in Danny’s ass. Danny has his head thrown back, mouth open, spine arched and he’s coming untouched. It’s not even a picture, it’s a screengrab from the video Stiles took when they got drunk and fucked on the the stump-remains of the nemeton. It’s a very good picture and Danny is very fond of it. He doesn’t ever want it on a refrigerator. “I’ll take the poster down.” 

“Nah,” Stiles drawls. “Leave it up. I’ll sign in it when I come to visit.” 

Danny exes out of the screen when they’re finished with great reluctance, hesitating over the frozen visage of his ridiculous boyfriend. Danny misses him viscerally, feels like all his skin has been removed, like every nerve in his body is exposed without Stiles near. It’s not healthy, he knows that. It just...is what it is. 

“I wanted this,” he tells himself out loud, making the thought tangible and somewhat chastising. “I wanted to be here.” 

He did. School is everything he thought it would be. Challenging and new. The people are great, his classes are great, his teachers all seem like geniuses, a million years ahead of him, like they truly have something to teach him. It’s great. 

It’s boring. 

Danny thought the theoretical knowledge behind engineering bionic coding for an organic human brain would blow his mind. And it does, kind of. It’s fascinating in a way that computer science always has been. So many endless possibilities if only you discover the map and key. That’s what he does; discovers. He is a cartographer of sorts, behind a screen, mapping out secrets, creating, exploring. 

But he’s discovered magic, too. Magic, just science we cannot yet explain. Danny can’t map Stiles out, can’t take him apart with anything but his mouth and hands, and he’ll never know what makes him the way he is. Those secrets are lost in the dark, and they taste like ink and sex and fire. Magic, wonderful impossible, endless, wild magic. It’s stolen the thunder from science in a way that makes Danny feel inexplicably robbed and blessed. 

 

Building robots is fucking cool okay? It’s fascinating to take bits and pieces of nothing at all and slice them together to make something real, and malleable. Artificial intelligence makes the hair on his arms stand on end, the sheer endless possibility of what it might be like to create a sentient life form void of blood and bone. It feels like playing God. 

And maybe that’s why it's lost its luster, because Danny plays with a God all the time and there is nothing so heady as watching hands that could destroy the world tremble against your skin. 

Danny has been wrist deep in the guts of a troll, fishing an honest-to-god black hole the size of a golf ball from its stomach so Stiles can squish it between his thumb and forefinger before it swallows up the earth. Danny has been kidnapped four separate times in as many months, and any fear he felt was for his kidnappers. Danny has learned to howl at the moon, learned to make it mean something, learn to call on his pack, his family. Danny has seen blood drop from gaping, sharp-toothed mouths, has felt fur beneath his hands melt back into skin. Danny has kissed eyelids that hid a depthless black gaze, has kissed his way across the dark side of the moon, calling Stiles back to him.

So yeah. Robots are cool, but Danny knows that he’s meant for more. It’s that thought that soothes him, really, as he opens his assignment for his Ethical AI class. 

The Moon minds the Man who minds the Wolves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone find me a picture like I described because I made that up but I wanna see it.


End file.
